I did, too. And the “natural fertility sign” that i paid the most attention to was that i got really horny around when i ovulated. Men just looked brighter and shinier. It was really obvious to me, and i still find it weird that it’s not obvious to everyone.
That happened to correlate approximately to some other standard stuff (time since period, mucus, the smell of my urine) but i didn’t track any of those. And my cycle was really irregular. And yes, i got pregnant on my first attempt.
Also, i feel using “the rhythm method” for contraception is a horrible male plot, because it means the woman only gets sex when she’s not into it.
My mom was very regular, and once got pregnant on the day before her period was due.
Her doctor told her she was like a rabbit, and ovulated in response to sex. People are diverse in many ways.
Having almost never been off continuous birth control since the age of 13, I have no good sense of what my natural cycle looks or feels like, except insofar as sometimes my BC stops working and my hormones start taking over. With PMDD it’s two weeks of feeling euphorically happy, energetic and sexy followed by two weeks of feeling suicidal, vengeful and psychotic. Fortunately when I was looking to get pregnant, I didn’t really have enough time to start all that stuff up again before I got pregnant.
But for reasons, I was off birth control for nearly a year after my miscarriage (age 33?) and the weird thing is, I never had a period. I remember asking an OBGYN if that was normal and she said, “No, it’s not.” But nothing ever came of it.
I grew up in a fairly stringently religious household, and yet I have been aware of menstruation since at least the age of five. I know this because it happened in my family’s first apartment bathroom, and we moved from there when I was five years old.
It was treated as a normal human function, and my mom had no hesitation of changing her pads around me. There’s not much privacy in a three room apartment.
Really, I think my introduction to menstruation was one of my least traumatic childhood memories. “0h, so you bleed down there. No big deal.”
My doctor asked me a few questions about perimenopause symptoms, but the main ones were insomnia (since I was a child, I can’t tell if it’s different or equally horrible as ever) and irregular cycles (I’ve had an IUD for a decade - I love my IUD- and don’t really menstruate at all. Occasional spotting isn’t cyclic).
So I have blood tests coming up!
Yay mid-40s!
I’m quite open about things with my son (ew, mom!).
My parents had the odd balance of “open, if they ask” which meant for a shy kid I didn’t ask. I remember sex ed in school (grade 5/6 but some biology stuff as early as grade 3) and “knew” what my period was when it started while not being remotely prepared at all to deal with it.
My father was the one who was home at the time, and he quietly went about getting me supplies and then had my mom call from work to talk. With two daughters, and night shift work, dad was often the one who had to make emergency runs to the pharmacy with his only complaint being EXACTLY WHAT COLOUR PACKAGE DO YOU NEED? For a while there, Always had shapes to differentiate their products and while I don’t remember the shape I wanted, he found “green diamond” (or club or whatever) to be a perfect way for him to buy us menstrual products.
Both of the Ottlets have had problems — mainly ovarian cysts and twisted tubes — which have led me to the conclusion that the creative figure is actually Father Nature. Because Mother Nature would never have come up with a reproductive process that put so much of the burden (and inconvenience) on Her daughters.
Also extremely white menstrual fluid! How would anybody who had only that for education connect that with blood?
Not to mention the total lack of explanation of how fertilization occurs. There isn’t even any indication that another human has to be involved (unless you count the wedding dress at the very end, I suppose,)
— My parents, somewhere around 1960, left a book on my bookshelf. It left out a lot; but it was massively better than that video. And it was apparently more info than the neighbor girls had, because they were very curious about it. When my mother found out I’d shown it to them, she told me I shouldn’t have done that, because their parents might have wanted to explain it themselves. I don’t think it occurred to her that their parents might not do so.
It’s bad for some people. I just had increasingly erratic periods; then they stopped. I had some mild hot flashes, but nothing bad — I remember working outside in cold weather and finding them pleasant.
Yeah. Relying on it as the only method isn’t wise unless all you’re doing is trying to space pregnancies further apart, not to avoid them entirely.
Yeah, I think I had ONE menopause-era experience that made me think “hmm, is this the thing that people call a hot flash?” That was basically it, physically.
I did go a few months needing to keep a conscious tighter rein on my suddenly shorter and hotter temper: more sharp anger spikes for really no good reason, like a child or something. (I remember thinking “wow, is this basically how men feel all the time? shit.” I did not automatically take my word for that, though.)
I realize from talking to a lot of other post-menopausal women that I got VERY lucky. (Apparently some studies suggest that never having been pregnant, as in my case, correlates with milder menopause symptoms? though I have no idea why.)
I think it was pretty good for 1946. Yeah, it says that it’s your fault if you get stressed or catch a cold, and suggested that you shouldn’t dance too enthusiastically when you have your period, and reminds you how important it is to look pretty… And, it struck out on “where do babies come from”, leaving the creepy idea that an egg might just spontaneously be impregnated. But it has a lot of solid information, including critically that “watery fluid and blood” will emerge from your vagina, which is between where you pee and where you poop, for a few days every month, and that this is normal.
The video i saw had characters named “Miss egg” and “Mr sperm”, which adds an important piece to the puzzle, but it was awfully goofy.
I remember the movie the girls had in school in 5th grade (1971). Our mothers were invited to watch it with us. My mom asked me if I had any questions; of course, I didn’t. After that, most of our info came by word of mouth. My mom gave my sisters and me a set of books that explained most of it, including sex. It wasn’t a shameful feeling, more of being embarrassed. I remember when I had my first period at 14 yo, I told my mom. She already had the supplies for me. She asked if I needed any help; I said no and figured it out myself. That was when we had to use belts! UGH
How times change. My granddaughter was thrilled when she started her period. She announced it to everyone, uncles included. She had a Ziploc bag of her supplies that she showed everyone with a big grin on her face.
I cannot speak to the woman-to-woman angle here, but the following is my personal take on what the OP calls “suppressing/avoiding discussion…”
Initiating a conversation about a particular woman’s menstruation: For a man to initiate any talk about the reproductive machinery of any particular woman (that he is not intimately involved with) or, particularly, a girl, would likely be received as deeply creepy (in the case of girls, as a sure sign of pedophilia). Outside of narrow professional contexts, of course.
Initiating a conversation about menstruation in general: If not speaking in a medical or educational capacity, would also be taken as creepy/pedophilic. Or mansplainy if I’d be very lucky.
As for taking part in discourse about a particular woman’s menstruation initiated by her: Women do not initiate such discourse with stranger me, as a rule. Understandable, as there is not any actionable reason for such conversation (i.e. the woman wants me to do or not do something) - I am not a medical professional, nor do I have any menstruation supplies on me. Also I am patently unsuitable as an empathy supplier as I am utterly incapable of knowing what menstruation feels like at the receiving end. Talk to me about your broken arm or your very bad sunburn and I’m your man there.
As for taking part in discourse about menstruation in general, initiated by women: I cannot contribute anything useful to this - how would anything I can say not be mansplaining?
Note that all of the reasons given above are not grounded in a notion that menstruation were shameful.
What strikes me as a stereotypically woman’s viewpoint in the thread title BTW is that “not discussing something” == “suppressing/avoiding discussion of something”. Not discussing something does not need a positive reason; not discussing something (in fact, keeping one’s mouth shut) is default behaviour absent positive reasons.
All of the above is from an adult man’s perspective, of course for intra-female discourse most or all of the above would not apply.
Boys (and men, if raising children or if they didn’t get educated on the subject as boys, or for that matter if one of their friends says something indicating massive ignorance) need to have enough discussion of menstruation, as well as of other functions of both male and female reproductive tracts, that they, and their children if any, understand how human bodies function. If only so they’ll understand why Susie Coworker might have had to suddenly go to the john when it wasn’t her break.
And there’s plenty of evidence that a lot of them don’t get it. We’ve seen some in this thread. We’ve seen it in the news.
I agree that you shouldn’t be tackling random women on the street — or coworkers for that matter — in order to discuss periods. But
I also don’t think that sort of situation is what this thread’s talking about.
I misunderstood the term discuss, then. A discussion as I understand the term involves some back and forth, with contributions from more than one side. When I need to learn something from a position of ignorance, I need to shut up and listen, not discuss.
(Come to think of it, my wife talked freely about her period back when she had one; I acknowledged the information and accommodated her wishes etc; we did not discuss it as I had nothing to contribute).
I suspect the OP meant the term “discussion” in its larger meaning: any / all mention of the topic. One doesn’t talk in any fashion about taboo topics.
His OP title could be rephrased as “What possible justification is there for menstruation being a taboo topic?”
Have you suffered every human ailment other than menstruation? Women suffering from their period might:
Have an awkward need to use a restroom NOW
Feel cranky/depressed
Have cramps (which don’t feel very different from intestinal cramps)
Feel bloated
Probably some other stuff that i haven’t experienced
All of those are issues I’ve also suffered for reasons other than menstruation. For reasons that men sometimes feel those things. I see no reason you can’t be an empathy provider.
And perhaps you don’t live with anyone who menstruates, but my husband has certainly purchased menstrual products. There’s no reason a man can’t be a provider of menstrual products. (He bought bras for our daughter, before she was old enough to do that herself. And underwear for both our daughter and our son, too.)
I really didn’t think it was bad for its time. The info was mostly practical, and told with little drama. Yes it featured a few fallacies, and reflected the expected life path expected of women in those times. But it was probably a lot better. less secretive, and dramatic than some girls of that time got. It was certainly better than the no info at all that many girls got.
Actually, I believe the answer may be no, menstruation isn’t strictly required for reproduction, though it usually occurs. Menstruation represents a failed reproductive cycle. If every ovulation resulted in a successful conception, menstruation might never happen.
A woman could conceive before ever having her first period, and subsequent pregnancies, followed by breastfeeding, which can delay the return of menstruations, could extend that even further. If her life ended early (perhaps even during childbirth), that would be reproduction without menstrual periods. It may be biologically possible for a woman to reproduce multiple times without ever experiencing a full menstrual cycle and make it to menopause, never experiencing a menstrual period at all.
She’d have to catch pregnant every time she ovulated; and, every time, not miscarry early enough for it to be taken for a period. Which would be extraordinarily unlikely.
And a portion of the menstrual cycle would be required, even then. The cycle isn’t only the part with the period.